After 2000, Goma expressed opinions on World War II, the Holocaust in Romania and the Jews, claims which have led to widespread allegations of antisemitism.
Goma was born to a Romanian family in Mana village, Orhei County, then in the Kingdom of Romania, now part of Moldova.
In August 1944, finding themselves in danger of involuntary "repatriation" to the Soviet Union, they fled to the village of Buia, by the Târnava Mare River.
On January 13, 1945, they were captured by Romanian shepherds and turned over to the Gendarmerie in Sighișoara, where they were interned at the "Centrul de Repatriere" ("Repatriation Center").
[4] He served his sentence at the prisons in Jilava and Gherla, and then was put under house arrest in Lătești (a former village of the Bordușani commune) until 1963.
[4] Several months later, Goma attempted to publish a novel, Ostinato (based on his experiences with the secret police), but it was not allowed by the censors after one of them claimed to recognize one character as Elena Ceaușescu.
[5] In February 1977, Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu made a speech in which he attacked the "traitors of the country", referring to the two letters Goma wrote.
[6] Called by Cornel Burtică, the Secretary for Propaganda of the Central Committee, on March 12, Goma got the promise of being allowed to publish again, but he refused as he said that he wants not to be followed by the Securitate.
[7] Following his arrest, he was attacked in the Romanian media: in a Săptămîna article, Eugen Barbu called him "a nullity", in Luceafărul, Nicolae Dragoș said he was "rousing reactionary elements" and in Contemporanul, Vasile Băran, not mentioning Goma, claimed that "individuals calling themselves writers and journalists sully with the dirtiest of dirt our noble profession".
[7] An international appeal for his release was launched, among the signatories being Eugène Ionesco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Miller and Edward Albee.
In February 2007, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania and the Israeli Embassy protested against the distinction, arguing that Paul Goma was the author of multiple antisemitic articles.
[21] On April 5, 2006 he was invited to become a member of the Tismăneanu Commission,[22] a body charged with researching the crimes of the communist dictatorship in Romania.
[22][23] Goma's literary debut came in 1966 with a short story published in the review Luceafărul with which he collaborated as well as with Gazeta literară, Viața românească and Ateneu.
[24] In its totality, Goma's literary work comprises a "persuasive and grimly fascinating exposure of totalitarian inhumanity"[25] from which, in his own case, even foreign exile was no guarantee of a safe haven.